Robert Lincoln Poston
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert T. Lincoln Poston, (1890-1924), was native of Hopkinsville, Tennessee. He came from a family of journalists and writers. His father, Ephriam Poston, was a teacher, poet and graduate of Roger Williams University in Nashville, Tennessee who authored Manual on Parliamentary Proceedings, 1905 and Pastoral Poems, 1906. Poston's mother was the former Mollie Cox of Oak Grove, Kentucky. Poston had six siblings: Fred Douglass, Ulysses Grant, Ephraim, Jr., Roberta, Lillian, and Theodore Roosevelt Poston.
Poston attended Nashville's Walden University, as well as, Howard University. He became a newspaper publisher and editor while in Detroit, Michigan. Later, he contributed poems, literary criticism, and sometimes editorials to the UNIA-ACL's Negro World newspaper. He attained the position of Assistant Secretary-General of the UNIA in 1921 and then was promoted to Secretary General in 1922. His brother Ulysses served as associate editor of the Negro World. Robert and Ulysses were among the co-directors of a play the UNIA dramatic club put on, in 1922, entitled "Tallaboo".
Poston married the sculptor Augusta Savage in 1923. In December of that year, Poston was the leader of a delegation sent to Liberia by the UNIA. He was accompanied on this trip by Henrietta Vinton Davis and Milton Van Lowe, among others. He died at sea aboard the SS President Grant while returning from Liberia via France. On March 19, 1924 he was posthumously given the rank of Prince of Africa by the UNIA during an elaborate state funeral at Liberty Hall. It was through that honor that the biblical prophecy "Princes shall come out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God" was proclaimed to have been confirmed.
